Despite their size, each Humvee only had four seats. Nina rode in the lead truck, accompanied by Vogler and two of his men, more former Swiss Guards replacing the ones killed in Antarctica. She had noticed, however, that Vogler’s contingent consisted of only four men, rather than the five he had had before. Did the Covenant only have limited manpower remaining? The absence of a new leader to replace Hammerstein, despite the presence of another group of six hard-faced Israeli troopers, suggested that was the case; if so, then the Covenant had its limits, and was far from the omnipotent organisation it had once seemed to be.
Zamal’s squad was at full strength, however. They emerged from their Humvees, forming an armed cordon as the Arab strode across the sand to meet the four horsemen waiting for them. ‘So who are those guys?’ Nina asked. ‘The apocalypse?’
‘Our guides,’ said Vogler. ‘The Janjaweed.’
Nina knew the name: the United States government had declared the militia group to be guilty of genocide in Darfur. ‘The Covenant sure is friends with some really nice people,’ she said, not concealing her disgust.
‘They would not have been my first choice. But this is their territory; we will need their support. Get out. They want to see you.’
‘I don’t want to see them,’ she said. But Vogler had already exited, rounding the Humvee to open her door. She reluctantly left the cabin.
The Humvee’s interior was air conditioned; opening its door was like opening that of a furnace. She hurriedly donned a floppy-brimmed hat to protect her pale face and neck from the sun’s searing glare, tugging her sleeves as far down as they would go. The occupants of the other Humvees also emerged, all in desert camouflage except for Callum, who was wearing civilian khakis. He regarded her from behind the blank quicksilver of his sunglasses.
Zamal was talking to the riders in Arabic. All wore thick headscarves and layered clothing to protect themselves from the sun, the top layer military fatigues in green and brown camouflage patterns. Their guns were AK-47s, the near-universal rifle of the Third World. One man had a rocket-propelled grenade launcher slung from his saddle; brand-new military equipment in the hands of a purportedly civilian militia. Despite the heat, there was one cold thing in the desolate landscape - their eyes, the narrow, unblinking gaze of men who expected to be feared, and had done much to justify it.
All four pairs of eyes locked on to her.
One of the riders said something to Zamal. He replied, his sneering smile directed at Nina. The four men all laughed malevolently.
‘These are the Janjaweed,’ Zamal said, turning to stand imperiously before her. ‘I can tell from your expression that you have heard of them.’
‘Yeah, you could say that. At the United Nations. Usually in connection with words like “mass murder”, “gang rape”, “genocide” . . . Real good company you keep for a supposed man of God.’
‘They serve a purpose. They will take us across the desert to where you say Eden will be found.’ His lips curled back, exposing his teeth in a sadistic grin. ‘And if it is not there . . . I will give you to them.’
‘I’ve heard it all before,’ said Nina, outward defiance not quite concealing her dread. The horsemen were still watching her, leering. ‘And it’ll be there.’
‘Perhaps you should show them where we are going,’ said Zamal, producing a map. ‘Before we meet the rest of their group.’
‘There’s more of them?’ she asked nervously. Four Janjaweed - the name literally meant ‘devil on horseback’ - were ominous enough, but an entire militia group . . .
‘Oh, yes. Many more.’ He placed the map on the Humvee’s hood, Vogler and Callum coming to look. ‘So. We crossed the Nile at Khartoum . . .’
‘So they crossed the Nile,’ said Chase, holding a digital print of the map from the frozen city. ‘Then if we backtrack west, they started from an oasis between three mesas.’ He looked at one of the satellite images Sophia held. ‘I don’t see an oasis, but they can come and go in a couple of years, never mind a hundred thousand. But the mesas . . . it’s got to be these.’ He tapped at a trio of formations on the printout.
Sophia gazed into the shimmering desert to the northwest. ‘We’re at the end of the road, then. Literally.’
‘If you call this a road.’ Chase looked back along the rutted track they had followed after heading northwards from El Obeid. ‘Going off road’s not going to be any worse for the truck.’ He banged the bonnet of the rusting, sand-scoured, 1980s-vintage Toyota Land Cruiser that TD’s contact had acquired for them.
‘Or our spines. So how far have we left to go?’
Chase swapped the Veteres map for a considerably more recent representation of the area. ‘About a hundred miles.’
‘How long will it take?’
‘Over this terrain? No way we’ll get there today. We’ll have to camp for the night.’
‘And we only have one tent,’ Sophia said with a playful smile. ‘Cosy.’
‘One tent and one truck,’ he reminded her. ‘I’m not bloody telling Nina that I slept with my ex-wife.’
‘Your loss. Do you have a preference, or shall we toss for them?’
‘You can have the tent.’
‘Then you can put it up. What?’ she said as Chase shook his head in exasperation. ‘You got to choose where to sleep. It only seems fair.’ She looked into the truck. ‘And what about the guns?’
‘They’ll be sleeping with me,’ he said firmly. As well as the truck and some survival gear, they had been furnished with a pair of weapons: a battered Browning High Power automatic that Chase guessed was a couple of decades older than he was, and an even more ancient Lee-Enfield rifle, its wooden body chipped and scarred, that almost certainly dated back to the Second World War.
‘Yes, I thought they might be.’ She smirked. ‘Sleeping with something cold, hard, inflexible, with awkward knobbly protrusions . . . it’ll be as if you’ve got Nina back.’
‘Har fucking har. Just for that, you can put up your own tent.’ Ignoring her look of displeasure, he gathered up the sheets of paper and got back into the Land Cruiser. ‘Coming?’
‘A long journey through a hot desert over awful terrain in a truck with worn-out suspension to spend the night in a tent? I can’t wait.’ She climbed in and slammed the door.
They picked their way northwest for hours, slowing over the harsh, rocky plains littered with sharp stones that threatened to rip through the Land Cruiser’s tyres, then speeding up to avoid getting bogged down in mile after mile of soft sand. Despite Chase’s best efforts, they still had to stop and dig themselves out a couple of times, further slowing their progress. By the time the sun neared the horizon, the Land Cruiser’s milometer told him that they had barely covered two-thirds of the distance to their destination.
The sunset itself was something to behold, though. The dust and sand in the air turned the western sky a lurid, dripping-blood red, swathes of orange running through it as though the heavens had caught fire. ‘Look at that,’ Chase said. ‘That’s a hell of a sunset. Wish we’d brought the camera.’
‘This isn’t going to become your new “night sky in Algeria” story, is it?’ Sophia yawned. Chase spotted a rock poking from the sand and swerved the Land Cruiser so that the wheels on her side slammed over it, jolting her hard. ‘Ow! Did you do that on purpose?’
‘Don’t be daft,’ said Chase, suppressing a smile as he looked back at the splendour of the setting sun.
He spotted something else, though: a column of black smoke rising into the sky two or three miles away. ‘Soph, check the map - the proper one. Were there any villages near the route we were going?’
She had seen the smoke too, and consulted the map. ‘Not for a long way. Are you off course?’
‘Don’t see how; I’ve been following the compass.’ He tapped the compass ball attached to the dashboard, which showed them to be heading northwest. Looking at the distant smoke, he saw a second column starting to rise beside it. ‘We’d better take a look.?
??
‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’ Sophia asked, her tone making it clear she thought it was not.
‘There’s not supposed to be anyone out here. Someone might be in trouble.’
‘Which is hardly our problem. And if it’s the Janjaweed?’
‘Then I want to know where they are before they know where we are.’ He aimed the Land Cruiser towards the smoke.
Fifteen minutes later, Chase stopped the truck. They were close to the base of a rocky rise. The smoke was coming from the other side, more dark stalks having sprouted during the drive. He wound down the window, listened for a moment, then took both guns from the back seat. ‘Come on.’
‘What is it?’ Sophia asked as he got out.
‘I heard shouting. Keep your voice down, and stay low.’ He clambered up the shadowed face of the dune. Sophia followed.
The shouts became clearer as they approached the low summit. Men, the yelling of a mob. And others cutting through it, higher-pitched: the screams of women.
And children.
Chase crawled the last few feet to peer over the top of the dune. ‘Shit,’ he hissed when he saw what lay below.
He’d seen similar scenes in different countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, half a dozen others where the rules of civilisation had been broken down by war. Over the dune was a rocky hollow, a small pool of rancid water at its heart, round which had been built a pathetic collection of shelters. A makeshift village, a camp for refugees fleeing the violence in Darfur to the west. A few dozen people at most, most of them women and children, trying to find safety.
They had failed.
The shelters were on fire, bodies strewn around them. Some had been shot, but most had been hacked down by machetes, or simply bludgeoned to death with clubs and rifle butts. Some of their attackers were on horseback, circling the doomed encampment and forcing back those of the dwindling group of survivors who tried to flee, laughing and shouting abuse as they rode to block and strike at them.
Those who had dismounted were in groups, three or four to each of the refugee women. They too were laughing, egging each other on.
Chase watched, a seething rage rising, as one of the women was thrown to the ground, the men holding her down and ripping away her clothes. She screamed, begging for mercy that would never be given as the Janjaweed leader, a man in a white headscarf and teardrop mirrorshades, tugged at his own clothing, belt flapping from his waist. More laughter, a cheer from the others as the screams rose into hysteria.
Chase brought the rifle to his shoulder, locking the cross hairs on the back of the man’s head—
Sophia shoved the barrel down. ‘What the hell are you doing?’
‘The world a favour,’ he replied angrily. ‘Let go of the gun.’
‘There must be fifteen of them, and they’ve all got AKs. If they realise we’re here, they’ll kill us.’
‘We’ll see how many I get first.’
‘This isn’t your fight, Eddie. We have to find Eden before the Covenant. And we’ve got no chance of doing that if the Janjaweed know we’re here.’ She looked him in the eyes. ‘You want to save Nina? Then we need a bargaining chip we can use against the Covenant. Being a white knight here will get us killed, and it will get her killed.’
Chase’s face tightened with fury . . . but he lowered the gun. ‘Fuck!’
Below, the screaming woman managed to pull one arm free, flailing it in panic - and knocking off her attacker’s sunglasses. The other men holding her laughed mockingly, but he punched her brutally in the face once, twice, blood spurting from her mouth and nose - then pulled back, drawing a gun and shooting her twice in the chest. He adjusted his clothing, then picked up his sunglasses and spat on the corpse.
Then the group moved on to another woman.
Sophia was already sliding back down the slope. ‘We should go,’ she said. ‘Wait for them to leave - and hope they’re not going the same way as us.’
‘They’d fucking well better not be,’ he growled as he descended after her.
Behind him, the screams stopped, one by one.
The horsemen led the convoy of vehicles through the empty desert. The sun was a fat, shimmering semicircle on the horizon by the time they stopped. Nina saw on the Humvee’s GPS screen that they were still at least thirty miles from the possible location of Eden, but the break in the journey was being called by their escorts.
They had arrived at the Janjaweed’s camp.
Nina watched nervously through the tinted window of armoured glass as the five vehicles pulled into a circle like a wagon train. There were at least fifty men in the camp, mostly young, all with the same predatory eyes as the horsemen as they watched the 4x4s come to a stop in their midst. The Janjaweed had trucks of their own, though they were the antithesis of the military vehicles in terms of sophistication - half a dozen ‘technicals’, elderly pickups stripped to the bone with machine guns affixed to mounts welded into the rear beds.
Zamal was the first out of the Humvees, the waiting horsemen now joined by a man whom Nina assumed to be the group’s leader. White headscarf, mirrored sunglasses, AK-47 over his shoulder and a machete across his back . . . and a face of cold, merciless stone. After a minute of discussion, Zamal gestured for the vehicles’ other occupants to emerge.
Nina was even more reluctant than before to do so, but had little choice. ‘This is Hamed,’ said Zamal of the Janjaweed leader. ‘He and his men will escort us to where we are going tomorrow. But tonight we are their guests. We are invited to share their shelter.’
‘Thank him for his generosity,’ said Callum, sarcasm creeping into his voice. Nina could see why; the collection of shabby, patched-up tents looked anything but inviting. ‘But we brought our own tents. Thank God,’ he added under his breath.
‘He also invites us to join them for their evening meal. Hamed has just returned from a successful mission, and wants us to share in the celebrations. Especially you, Dr Wilde. He is particularly keen for you to join him.’ Behind Zamal, Hamed’s face showed expression for the first time: a sadistic lust.
‘I’d rather sit in the Humvee’s trunk and eat dog food,’ she said.
Zamal smirked. ‘It can be arranged.’
To Nina’s surprise, Vogler came to her defence. ‘It would be best if Dr Wilde were kept apart from our . . . hosts. To avoid any unfortunate incidents.’ The two Covenant leaders stared at each other, an unspoken challenge.
‘A shame,’ said Zamal after a moment. ‘The Janjaweed will be disappointed not to have the pleasure of her company.’
‘I don’t want to be a part of any kind of pleasure these guys have,’ Nina said in revulsion.
‘Nor do I,’ Vogler told her. He issued orders to his men. They unpacked large quick-erect tents, kicking aside stones and deadwood in the wide circle formed by the parked Humvees to make space for the dome-shaped shelters.
Zamal turned back to Hamed, apparently telling him that he would be having one guest fewer for dinner. The Janjaweed leader scowled, before launching into a discussion of something else . . . but his eyes never wavered from Nina.
Despite the heat, she shivered.
‘Well, shit,’ muttered Chase, scanning the firelit encampment through the rifle scope.
‘What is it?’ Sophia asked from beside him. It was night; they lay just below the crest of a low dune, observing the activity in the distance.
‘It’s not just the Janjaweed. I don’t think they could afford five new Humvees.’
After returning to the Land Cruiser and driving to a safe distance from the ravaged refugee camp, they had waited to see in which direction the Janjaweed left. With a certain inevitability, they had gone northwest - the direction in which Chase and Sophia needed to head.
Chase had waited longer to give the horsemen time to open up the gap between them, then followed on a parallel course, hoping to skirt round them before night fell. But then he saw more smoke silhouetted against the dying light of the dusk sky - ahead of them
. A Janjaweed camp. They would have patrols watching the desert, so the Land Cruiser’s lights would be spotted from miles away if he tried to drive round it - and driving without lights in this terrain was a recipe for disaster.
‘The Covenant?’
‘It’s not tourists, that’s for bloody sure.’ He panned across the camp, seeing horses, pickup trucks, tents, far too many armed men for his liking . . . and a familiar face. ‘Ay up,’ he muttered. ‘It’s the Covenant all right. There’s Zamal - and he’s talking to that rapist fucker from the refugee camp.’
‘Well, that’s marvellous,’ said Sophia. ‘You know what Nina’s done, don’t you? She’s given the Covenant the directions to bloody Eden!’
‘She can’t have done,’ Chase said defensively. ‘She didn’t know. Not accurately enough.’
‘She didn’t need to. She saw the general location in Antarctica. If we could figure it out from modern maps, so could they.’
‘She wouldn’t have helped them,’ he insisted.
‘Then they tortured it out of her, if that makes you feel any better. But it doesn’t change the fact that they’re here. Even if they don’t know the exact location, they’ve got enough manpower to search the desert until they find it. Damn it!’
‘We can still beat ’em,’ said Chase, continuing to scan the encampment. More Janjaweed men, pushing the number to over fifty, sitting in groups round the fires; Covenant troopers in desert camo; dome tents inside the circle formed by the Humvees—
‘Buggeration and fuckery,’ he whispered.
‘What?’
He adjusted the focus, picking out some very familiar red hair through the half-open flap of one tent. ‘They’ve got Nina.’
‘She’s there?’ Sophia said in disbelief. ‘They actually brought her with them?’
‘They must need her to work out where Eden is.’ He shifted the sights, pinpointing her exact position.
‘Or,’ Sophia countered, ‘she made a deal with them. Her life for the location of Eden.’
Chase glared at her. ‘She’d never do that.’